Among northern Saskatchewan Roughriders fans, driving past the Aylesbury Elephant Bar on game day is considered a sin.

As the legend goes, two or three years ago, a bus driver was travelling south on Highway 11 when the Rider Nation passengers asked if they were making the usual pit stop. “No, we’re going to stop in Chamberlain,” came the driver’s response.

Well…

“They had a mutiny on the bus,” says Lyle Hodgins, owner of the Elephant Bar.

According to Hodgins, the driver got about 10 kilometres past Aylesbury before he caved, found a safe spot to pull a U-turn and pulled up in front of the province’s most famous Riders bar.

If it wasn’t for the Aylesbury Hotel, which houses the bar, there wouldn’t be much reason for highway travellers to pull into the tiny village in between Regina and Saskatoon. The hotel, which hasn’t used its second-floor rooms in years, is the community’s only business.

Aylesbury was never very big. It reached a peak population of 180 in 1956 and numbers dwindled shortly after.

Ask Hodgins about the history and he’ll spout off names — either a first or a last, then pausing to ask someone nearby what so-and-so’s name was. Pretty soon he has compiled the names of four of the bar’s previous owners spanning about 50 years.

The bar’s history matters, but whatever it used to represent has changed drastically in the past 17 years. Its reach has never been bigger, its community never more tight knit.

For those who know about the Elephant Bar, it’s a can’t-miss spot. Especially when the Roughriders play. Just ask the bus driver.

Photographs of Saskatchewan Roughrider fans who have visited the bar cover the walls of the Aylesbury Hotel.Michael Bell /
Regina Leader-Post

To hear Hodgins tell it, the bar’s transformation into a hub for football fans began modestly.

Lyle and his sister Lana were living in Calgary after their father passed away. Less than a year later, they were back in Aylesbury for their mother’s funeral.

The bar was up for sale around the same time. Lana returned to Aylesbury first and the Hodgins siblings decided to buy the bar.

“Lana was kind of like me, she was her own boss and didn’t like the idea of working for anybody,” says Lyle, who spent his life, up until that point, working for people in the lumber business.

The excitement of new owners in the old establishment drew good business. Lyle calls the start of bar ownership “a good experience,” before mentioning the years of drought and BSE (mad cow disease) that followed. “Things kind of slowed down.”

With nobody in the area selling much grain or cattle, the bar — and its new owners — took it on the chin.

Then: “The football people started coming in,” Lyle says.

“Reggie’s bus line. He stopped in here once, probably just to go to the bathroom. Everybody got off the bus and everybody had a good time. Word of mouth got around and more and more people started to come.”

What started as an occasional pitstop in a small village without a gas station became a game day tradition for a couple hundred green-clad Riders fans who make the trek from Saskatoon to Regina.

The Aylesbury Hotel.Michael Bell /
Regina Leader-Post

The five months of football season keep the bar afloat during the slower months.

“It definitely sustains and that’s why we try to make sure everybody’s looked after and happy when they get here and happy when they leave,” Lyle says.

It’s clearly not the location that made the Elephant Bar what it is — it’s the people, starting with Lana and Lyle.

That’s what stood out to Curtis Arnold, a Roughriders season ticket holder who was taking one of those busses on a game day more than a decade ago. He had “no clue” about the bar when he walked up the steps and into the establishment. “Why are we stopping here?” he remembers thinking.

Now he describes himself as a “semi-regular,” who plans his whole game day around spending a couple hours at the Elephant Bar before finishing the second leg of the journey. Lana and Lyle made a good first impression. But Arnold isn’t the only one whose innocent first visit turned into a repeat occurrence.

“Lots of time there are people you see, and that’s the only time you see them,” Arnold says. “But you don’t go out with them in Saskatoon.”

The bar is more than a gathering place for fans, according to Arnold and others. That’s why the “football family” who assemble in the bar every home game was hit so hard when Lana was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer in summer 2013.

She did radiation therapy, which slowed her down. But she kept setting goals, like making it to her 60th birthday. Most importantly, she saw the Riders win a Grey Cup at home for the first time in history.

Gillian Lloyd gets choked up talking about how happy everyone was that Lana could see the Green and White lift the CFL championship trophy one more time.

“She was just so excited. You wouldn’t have known she was feeling unwell,” Lloyd said of Nov. 24, 2013. “We didn’t know if she was actually going to be there that day because it was a day-to-day thing with her. But she made the effort. She put her hat on to cover her thinning hair and got her Riders gear on and came down to the bar and spent as much time as she could with everybody and got pictures taken. It was pretty awesome. She was in such a good mood.”

Lana Hodgins and Gillian Lloyd at the Aylesbury Elephant Bar in November 2013. -

Gillian and her husband Chris live in Saskatoon, so they stayed the night in Regina after the Grey Cup game. It meant another opportunity to see Lana the next day.

“I don’t know that too many people didn’t stay in Regina that night, so everything was full-fledged, in-gear the following day as well when everybody was coming back.”

The Lloyds first stopped in at the Elephant Bar, on recommendation from a friend, before they became season ticket holders in 2006. They met Lyle and Lana, but it wasn’t until the Lloyds started making the trek to every game — stopping at the bar every time — that the relationship developed.

“Lyle wasn’t there and Lana was run off her feet,” Gillian recalls. “She was so busy. We just hollered at her, ‘Do you need a hand? ‘ And she was like, ‘Yeah, get your asses back here.’ ”

From that game on, Gillian and Chris were behind the bar, pitching in and always leaving their tips in the till.

There’s something special about the Elephant Bar on game days, as friends pour into the bar for a cold one on the way to the game. Everybody remembers a Labour Day Classic where a line of buses filled up the road behind the train tracks off the highway.

Arnold calls it Saskatoon’s version of the regular pre-game festivities on the practice field outside old Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field.

The Elephant Bar has its own rituals: The walls are covered in photos taken by Lyle every game day, so regulars challenge their friends to find them among the green-clad throng; on a table sits a Roughrider flag that everybody passing through will sign — and when it’s full, it joins the others that cover every inch of the ceiling.

“People need to keep in mind that small-town bars like that, particularly a place like Aylesbury where there is no gas station, there is no convenience store, the only reason people stop there is for a beer and some fun at the Elephant Bar,” Gillian says. “The only time that those guys make really any money is on game days.”

People care about the little bar, she points out, and they tip generously. They care about Lyle and they’re excited to see his photos from the previous game day.

They cared about Lana, who nearly got to see another whole CFL season after the 2013 Grey Cup, but died in October 2014 after her 18-month battle with cancer.

Everyone agrees it’s different without Lana. She is missed greatly by her “football family,” who have only fond memories to pass along.

“She was the fixture in that place,” Gillian says. “She always had a big smile and backhanded comment that she would give to everybody in there.”

“You treated her right and she would treat you fantastic,” Lyle says.

Lana Hodgins poses for a photograph at the Elephant Bar in Aylesbury in November 2013 during her battle with cancer.Liam Richards /
THE CANADIAN PRESS

All signs point to Lana being the catalyst for the prairie phenomenon the Elephant Bar became, but the scene hasn’t faded in her absence. It only evolves.

Gillian says Lana would be proud of the work Lyle and new co-owner Glen Schroeder have done on the bar in the past few years, including the green-and-white painted roof.

Schroeder is referred to as Lana’s “adopted brother” in her obituary. A resident of Aylesbury, he met the Hodgins siblings after they bought the bar in 2000.

“This is the only business in town,” he says as a matter of explanation. The bar is where locals pick up their mail. Until the end of May, it’s also the village’s STC depot.

“I got along with them excellently right away. Lana was one of my best friends,” Schroeder says.

With Lyle working in Regina, Schroeder is behind the bar most days. It comes with the task of breaking the news to people who haven’t been inside the bar in years and ask about Lana.

“It’s kind of flattering, actually, that people still care,” Schroeder says.

While he was friends with the Hodginses, it wasn’t until 2013 when he started helping around the bar. He says he just “fell into it” after Lana was diagnosed. Then he stayed on.

Lyle says when he kicks the bucket, the bar will be Schroeder’s.

By all accounts, Lana kept the details of her cancer battle to herself. But nothing could stop the Elephant Bar faithful from pitching in when they found out. Not everything was covered financially and customers did what they could to raise money for treatment.

“It was incredible,” Schroeder says. “There were a lot of people stopping in … It meant a lot to us.”

A framed letter from Premier Brad Wall to Lana sits behind the bar. In it, Wall acknowledged Lana’s “loyalty to the Green and White” as he hoped she would get well soon and wished her the best with treatment.

Even after Lana’s death, word of mouth continues to be the bar’s best advertising. Schroeder enjoys meeting a stream of new people. Weekend highway traffic keeps moving, even between football seasons. But there’s still a sense of waiting for winter and spring to end.

From his vantage point in the middle of the highway between Saskatchewan’s two largest cities, the dedication of Roughrider fans outweighs the team’s performance. He believes that passion has endured the green masses through three disappointing seasons.

“It’s going to be interesting, for us especially, because there’s going to be a lot of people stopping in to see the new stadium. Everybody that I’ve talked to is fairly excited about that,” Schroeder says.

Lana would’ve loved to see the new Mosaic Stadium, he says.

The disease that took her wouldn’t let that happen, but in more ways than one, Lana is still at the Elephant Bar.

For starters: The establishment’s name.

While the sign outside and the building itself both still bear the name of Aylesbury Hotel, brother and sister changed it to reflect Lana’s love of pachyderms.

Behind game day pictures and Pilsner’s Roughriders flags, elephants take up the most decorative real estate inside the walls of the small bar. There are shelves filled with them.

But the elephants are more than just one person’s infatuation with a particular animal — they’re gifts. Each long-trunked statue, marionette and carving has a story. A small blue one from Afghanistan was given to Lana by a veteran who picked it up during his tour of duty.

“I bought eight at an auction one time and now that’s all I ever get for birthday or Christmas,” Lana once told the StarPhoenix’s Kevin Mitchell.

“The whole deal of it is you’re supposed to think of me when you see an elephant. A lot of people will say ‘oh, I was going to get that elephant for you!’ and I’ll reply ‘at least you thought of me.’ Every time you see an elephant, you think of me.”

How right she was.

Lana is remembered in that bar every day as a good, kind person with a sharp wit who cut through the bull.

She’s remembered when people look at those rows of elephants, yes, but she’s also remembered every time someone returns to the bar several years later because of her hospitality.

She’s remembered by everyone who passes through the bar on game day. By those mentioned in this story and countless others. They see the many pictures of her on the wall, including her own exclusive section.

And the final way Lana is still in the Elephant Bar? Well, because she is. In an elephant, no less.

Her remains were cremated. Lyle and the gang found a perfect cookie jar from Lana’s collection.

She rests on the back of the bar, tucked between the bottles, in a white elephant wearing a pink vest and a black bowtie.

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